The Malevolant Psyche
by Lady Devonna
Summary: This is actually a rewrite of an earlier fanific, "The Future of Escaflowne" -real creative title. I decided to add things like plot coherence and character depth. Basic premise: Dilandau has a daughter (this is explained) who by a twist of fate has to sa
1. Default Chapter

The man who stepped out of the leviship and onto the dry, hot earth before the hut was, at the moment, the most inwardly complex character on Gaia. His name was Dilandau Albatou, though once it had been Kiyoshi. He had several titles, military and political, none of which he had ever done much to earn. He led the most feared crack force on the planet, Zaibach's premiere Dragonslayers. Somewhere in the depths of his mind slept Selena Schezar, whose heart kept them both alive until they found a way to escape. Threatening to engulf them both completely was the total insanity, inflicted by the same lunatics that had bound them inexorably forever. In no way could he ever hope to lead a normal life, no way in which he could ever understand the trials and tribulations of ordinary humanity.

And yet he was scared shitless to confront his girlfriend.

"Migel, Blake, Tatooloo, hold the fort." Respectively, Migel was the most trustworthy of the Dragonslayer's, Blake the most sensitive, and Tatooloo the best pilot. They were used to accompanying him on his AWOL romantic exploits. He didn't wait for their familiar, "Yes, sir!" He had to get this over with.

He didn't knock; it annoyed Sutefani. She was the only person he knew easier to annoy than he was. "Fan?"

"Hey, Dilly." She was stirring something over the fire. Laundry or lunch he couldn't tell—she was a lousy cook.

"You don't seem surprised." If getting this over with was as important as he thought—no, knew, why was he skirting the issue?

"Who else pulls up around here in a fucking Zaibach leviship?" She poked the kettle with what looked like a rusty sword. "This'll take a while. Play with Dilla."

He shouldn't do this. He should say it now and get out of here. "Right." Dilandau breathed deeply and made his way gingerly over to the cradle in the corner. His own face, albeit much younger and female, smiled up at him and giggled. Sanity, perfection, innocence… He lifted his daughter with all the tenderness he knew how.

"Hey, little me." He beeped her nose. Someone had done that to him, in the childhood he didn't really remember. All he had were snatches like that.

"Da!" She stuck out her tongue at him.

He started. "Did she just call me…?"

"No, she's much too young to talk. It was a random syllable."

"Oh."

"Lu' oo Da!" This was going to be worse than he thought.

"What's for lunch?"

"Whatever the hell this is. I'm pretty sure it involves goats. Invite the Slayers. Gotta be boring sitting in that ship all day." The furs wrapped around her legs rippled as she shuffled back and forth, as tired as an old woman from life alone in the Zaibach/Freid mountains. Dilandau wasn't sure, even when they were together, what it could be about the bitter, emaciated, uneducated peasant girl that set him on fire.

"Um… I'd rather not…"

She exquisitely misinterpreted his reluctance. "No fucking in front of the baby, jackass."

"Uh…" He put Dilla back in her cradle. "I need to tell you something."

Something which he assumed to be the women's intuition he'd heard so much about warned her. There was something very dangerous in her cold, gray-green eyes that put his own notoriously maniacal pair to shame. "So tell, prettyboy."

"They know." The statement didn't carry the self-evident weight he'd hoped. "I told you everything I know. What I am to them. A prophesy come to life, and a successful experiment."

"Yeah, real successful. Just a teensy bit homicidally loony."

"Alive, mostly. But that's really it. I'm getting better. I know what the hell I'm doing half the time. They wanted to know why. They had me followed. They know." He didn't explain who "they" were. He practically didn't know himself. "I can't keep seeing you."

"…Say again?" There were rock tigers living near here; he'd heard them howling by night and even seen a few. They weren't half as terrifying.

Dilandau shook his head, to deny or to clear he couldn't tell. "You think I want this? You're—You two are—If they find out about her she becomes another variable. They'll take her. They'll kill you. Please, Fani, understand! Tatooloo shook off the leviskiff trailing us, but we can't rely on it. He's good, but not that good. And I have no idea what I might say when… When you know. When my head doesn't work."

She didn't seem to have heard anything. "It's that hussy from the castle guard, isn't it?"

"That who…?" He was completely mystified for a moment. "You mean Natsumi?"

"Oh, is that the name?"

"How do you know about her?" It was a sincere question, but the wrong one. She threw a knife at him, clipping his ear on its path to the wall.

"Fine. Fine! See if I care, you piece of shit, you fucking bastard. We don't need you. Never have." Dilandau was a cutely aware of the strength rippling through her arms, and the fact that she was half a head taller than he was, but she almost didn't seem angry after the initial outburst. "Get out, shit."

"Fani, please, I just don't see any other way…" His lower lip was trembling. _Don't be such a crybaby._ Another echo from forgotten past, come back just when he didn't want it.

"Go."

"It's not Natsumi! I don't even like her! I love you! Please don't hate me! Please!" He felt hot tears on his cheeks. "Please…"

"Shut up and go." She waved him away, like he was inconsequential. Dilla was crying, but he seemed to have stopped existing for Sutefani.

He wiped his eyes on his sleeve and, with one last look at what he loved most, Dragonslayer Commander Dilandau Albatou swept back into the outside world, leaving behind whatever semblance of happiness and sanity remained to his life.


	2. Little Dilla's all grown up

It was still dark, and quite cold for summer. I was feeling sort of weighted down, and it wasn't half a week's worth of traveling bread, the Crima Gun, a small guitar, and a short-sword that did it. However justified I felt, it was hard to leave the only home I'd ever known, and one of the only friends.

I didn't rightly know why I was going, certainly not where. I simply knew there was nothing left here that I hadn't done a thousand times, seen a million. When the year's big event is the Asturian tax collector, Sir Poen Castona, showing up to tell you stories, and you have conversations with goats, it's time to move on. I was sixteen that day, a legal adult anywhere in the world. I could play guitar and fight with the best average swordsman, and there was a giant tiger following me around. Life looked pretty rosy.

Tiger bumped my hip with his nose, knocking me over. Still thought he was a kitten. I decided to give him a better name in case someone asked. "Destroyer of Worlds?" He didn't answer. "Lord of the Mountains and Maimer of People Who Mess With Dilla?" Nope. "Tiger…" He licked my hand. "Fine, keep your stupid name." I sat on his back and we started down the mountain.

The sense of a burden grew lighter as we went. A rock tiger's back isn't made for comfortable seating, but I was used to him enough to balance without paying much attention. I dug the pouch out from between my breasts. This was where Mama had told me to put objects of value when traveling, though she'd never expanded on why, and I couldn't think why she'd know. She never traveled. I'd only recently had breasts at all, so I'd had no occasion to think about it.

The bag itself was just hyrax hide, but nestled inside were all I had that might give me a purpose. A blue silk kerchief, a small amber pendant carved with a coat of arms, a dagger with an ivory hilt, a silver ring set with moonstones, a book of poems, and a piece of oddly lustrous metal twisted into strange abstract shapes. I'd stolen them point blank. They were gifts to Mama from my father.

She didn't seem to care. As far as she was concerned, I'd dropped out of the air. If she was as apathetic as she'd have liked me to think, though, she would have answered my questions. All I knew I'd either weaseled out of her or guessed.

"Father" was a concept to me, more than a person. Father was wealthy, and probably important, to afford the gifts he'd given Mama. Father was small and slight, and maybe an albino, because I was and Mama certainly wasn't. Father was Draconian, though I wasn't sure Mama even knew it. Beyond that, I was entirely clueless. Why I'd never seen him, whether he was even alive…

It was getting lighter. Mama was probably awake. She'd think I was with the goats. She wouldn't notice anything amiss until nightfall. I doubted she'd worry; she never did. She'd miss me, and wonder what happened, but she wouldn't dwell on it. So guilt at least wasn't one of my problems.

I looked at the keepsakes for a long time, not really thinking about anything. We went on for about two hours, though we didn't get very far. You can't make a tiger hurry. "Breakfast?" He stopped. "Okay, you go find some. I have mine. We'll get going again soon." I patted him between the ears and got off his back. "Go on." He scampered off, as much as a two thousand pound monster carnivore can. I wondered just how much he understood of what I said.

I decided against a fire. The sun was warming things up already. I finished what little I allowed myself and was getting a bit sleepy waiting for Tiger. It was cloudy, but there was enough sunlight to warm up the rocks around me. I was drifting off when I heard someone coming.

It wasn't tax time, and Sir Castona always came on horseback. That made it bandits, who tended to be nasty sons of bitches around there. I got up and hid behind a rock, pulling out my sword.

They got closer, and I heard three voices, all male, and none of them my favorite knight of the blonde-people realm. They didn't sound like bandits, either, though, who spoke mostly in grunts. I listened.

"This place is hell on Gaia…"

"Shut up, Private. Do your duty."

Military lingo. I mentally went through what Sir Castona had told me about the various armies. Asturians were dangerous and to be avoided at all costs, Freidans were totally ineffective due to lack of training, and Fanelians were honor-bound by too many freaking rules to even achieve ineffectiveness. I thought it interesting that a tax collector/retired general would accuse his own country as such, but he also said he was considered and eccentric bordering on dangerous.

I peeked over the rock. None of the heads I spotted was blonde, which didn't necessarily mean I was safe. A lot of Asturians were yellow-headed, but not all by a long shot. Again, I was relying on Sir Castona's anecdotes. Two hours out in the world and he hadn't let me down yet.

"Why in _hell_ are we here, anyway?" This was a third voice.

"Yours is not to reason why, Private!" Two privates. Was that good or bad? I was tired of waiting. Technically, Mama owned about half these mountains. She didn't do anything with it, and the land didn't produce anything, and taxes still came to one goat a year, but it stood legally. I was fairly sure Sir Castona was behind it. Therefore, I was still in my front yard, and no stupid soldiers were allowed on it.

"Hey!" I stepped out from behind the rock. "Private property! What're ya'll doin' here?" Oops. Mama would be royally pissed if she knew. I picked up what she called "backwoods" speech (there weren't any woods for a hundred miles) from her, but she made the effort to teach me to talk right. I got in trouble when I slipped.

"We could ask you the same thing, wench!" From his uniform and air of inherent bossiness, I guessed he was the officer.

"Yeah, but it wouldn't be too creative." That sounded okay. Not fancy, but not too backwoods. Satisfied, I turned my attention back to the three angry, and rather confused, men.

"Answer me!"

"S'_my_ land. And my name's Dilla. Well, Dilanda, actually. Dilanda Renkai. Pff, stupid full name."

The all looked a bit stunned, like a liondeer before I shot it. A sort of a… "Should I kill it or run?" kind of look. I didn't get it. One of the privates spoke. "Eh… Renkai? Are you sure?"

"It's _my_ name!" I was confused and pissed. I wished I wasn't so sensible. The Crima Gun was itching to be used.

"He didn't tell us it was a girl!" I probably wasn't supposed to hear that. I had good ears. _What_ was a girl? …Oh, right. But that didn't answer anything. I was sooooo confused.

When confused, I always had an inexplicable urge to blow things up and set fire to whatever might be left. Just one of those things, I guess, since I seldom had any such impulse when I knew what was going on. I shook my head to clear it.

"Lord Donovan can't know _everything_," said Mr. General loftily.

"Why not?" I'd never heard of a Lord Donovan, or the scope of his knowledge of things, so the question was motivated by an actual desire for information.

"Shut up, brat."

I didn't have to take that, certainly not from a freaking general whose boss didn't know everything. Fuck logic. I pulled the Crima Gun.

The Crima Gun is my own invention, and I'd like to take a moment out of this narrative to brag about it a little. I made it out of bits and pieces I found in a valley near our house, where there had been a 'melef battle before I was born. The gun was about a foot long and really heavy. I didn't quite understand the workings, even though I invented it. The core was a sort of capsule that transformed just about any metal put inside it into a strange substance that wasn't quite liquid or solid. The gun itself just concentrated the stuff and directed it at the target of my choice. Mom told me it was Zaibach stuff that no one understood anymore, and that it was used on 'melefs on a larger scale, and called Crima Claws. The mechanical aptitude I inherited from Mom. The mysterious half-understanding of lost technology was a little harder to explain. Now, back to my awesome story.

I held the gun to his head and smiled my… unnerving smile. "I don't like you. You bother me. Answer my questions and do what I say, or we'll soon be serenaded by the exquisite symphony of splintering bone, spurting blood, and bursting brains. After which, there will be two encores. And then I fully intend to trample and incinerate whatever might remain. Understood?" Speeches like that came out of me from time to time.

The privates stared at me. The general tried, but he seemed not to want to move enough to stare. I felt I was on a role, so, even though what I was saying freaked me out a little, I went on. "Furthermore, if those answers aren't exactly as prompt and lucid as I desire, you will find the bulk of yourselves distinctly separated from certain bits you might find useful, but _I_ don't consider necessary to answering reasonable questions." I didn't know I knew all those words.

"Put that down," said one of the privates shakily. I looked at him particularly for the first time. He was about three times my size (a normal sized adolescent male), and more than usually strong. So why he should be afraid of a tiny platinum blonde was beyond me. I mean, I was _smiling_. They didn't think I was _serious_, did they? I wasn't, was I?

"What, this? No, I think I like it where it is." And then I decided it would be even cooler to spin the gun around my finger a couple times, so I pulled it away from the general's temple.

All I wanted was to know what the hell was going on. Maybe holding a gun to someone was a bit odd—I couldn't quite explain my behavior to myself; it happened sometimes—but, really! Three guys trained in combat jumping a helpless girl at once? They were lucky I was too surprised to think of shooting them. As it was the privates got a hold of my arms and took Mr. Gun. And then something hit me in the back of the head. Really hard.

As you might imagine, I wasn't aware of much after that.


End file.
